FWP AT WORK Mark Kornick, Hatchery Manager, Somers

KOKANEE KING

MARK KORNICK

I’m looking at a canister of three-month-old kokanee salmon fry. [Fish culturist] Brad Flickinger and I produce the state’s kokanee eggs and fish here at the Flathead Lake Salmon Hatchery in Somers and also at the recently built Rose Creek Hatchery near Bigfork. In addition to kokanee, we spawn and rear arctic grayling, rear westslope cutthroat and brook trout for stocking in high mountain lakes, and spawn a unique rainbow-cutthroat trout hybrid exclusively for Ashley Lake west of Kalispell. But kokanee are our main focus, and it’s really rewarding for us to know that we are the guys who produce all the kokanee stocked in Montana—and also in a few other states with which Montana trades fish. Montana’s kokanee anglers are passionate about their sport, and we like knowing that most of the kokanee they catch (some kokanee reproduce naturally in the wild) started out right here in these two hatcheries under our care.

Photojournalist ERIK PETERSEN of Clyde Park was returning from a photo assignment in eastern Montana last June when he decided to camp at Makoshika State Park for a few days to photograph the area’s remarkable geologic formations. “I’d seen these hoodoos the night before and got up early, around 4:30, and hiked out to see what they looked like at dawn,” Petersen says. “I lucked out, because the sky was cloudy that morning but then the sun peeked through the clouds from the east and cast this orange-green tint onto the sandstone formations. That warm, filtered lighting, along with all the late spring vegetation, made the otherworldly setting of Makoshika even more magical.” ■